Who's afraid of conflict? How conflict framing in campaign news coverage mobilized voters in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections

In this article we investigate the impact of campaign news coverage on the mobilization of voters in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections. In a unique multi-method and comparative cross-country study design we combine a media content analysis (N=52,009) with data from a two-wave panel survey conducted in 21 EU member states (N=32,411). More specifically, we focus on two distinct features of election campaign coverage, conflict and horse-race framing, and investigate to what extent this sort of news affected voters in their decision to participate in the elections. Consistent with expectations, conflict framing in campaign coverage showed to mobilize voters to turn out to vote whereas horse race framing had no effect. Furthermore, our findings suggest that conflict framing had more of an impact in countries which benefit from EU membership (i.e. countries which are net receivers from the EU) compared to countries which are net contributors. We discuss our findings with regard to the democratic deficit of the EU and the potentially healthy role of political conflict in contemporary election campaigns.